No love story has ever been told. There are only lust stories.
Lust, it turns out, is a surprisingly fluffy and soft emotion. Doesn't at all match its reputation. I presume this is due to an Envy-style perception filter.
Regardless of the roots of the dynamic, all love stories boil down to this: "I am attracted to the attractive person." The protagonist believes the hot dude/chick would produce healthy offspring. Banal, prosaic, and self-absorbed.
Some of the most [[[romantic]]] stories are about how the potential offspring are so healthy, it's worth risking your life to procreate with their genitors. Banal, prosaic, self-absorbed, and melodramatic to the point of being suicidal. Being [romantic], it seems, is being lustful to the point of perversion, at the same time as being highly delusional.
It can even go further, to the point where the lust is fake. Many stories are about a protagonist who refuses to settle for anyone but the most attractive person. Why doesn't the second most attractive one also inspire lust? Why can't they be good enough? Because it's all Pride. Envy farming. There is no real lust there at all, the MC and author are faking. They cast it as loyalty...to someone they're not even married to. "I"m going to treat you as if we've been married for 30 years, even though I met you earlier today." Very sane.
Readers find these delusional traitors especially sympathetic.
Might as well go ahead and believe them. They're telling you about themselves.
It's heavily implied that romeo tapped juliet, and lancelot tapped guienevere. Naturally, it evolved to be worse. In modern [love] stories it's either full pornography with contraceptives, or so chaste both sides remain virgins. Truly twisted. Lust stories where nobody has kids, or lust stories where only the worst kind of villains have sex at all.